ANTIGONISH, Nova Scotia – Wind-whipped snow lightly covered the highway as the Lewiston Maineiacs’ bus barreled across Nova Scotia on Sunday. The team’s coaching staff fired up a laptop and began dissecting video. Most of the players, stomachs full from a hearty breakfast, dozed off.

Ten minutes down the road, something didn’t look right: The highway turned into a two-lane road.

Pulling out a map, the staff determined the driver had missed a turn by 30 kilometers.

For the third time in less than three weeks, the Maineiacs navigated the highways and back roads of Nova Scotia, on their way to Sydney and a date with the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles in Game 6 of the teams’ first-round Quebec Major Junior Hockey League playoff series.

“We haven’t been here in a while, have we?” Maineiacs’ head coach Ed Harding joked. “No, we split (the trip) up into two days this time, and I think we’ll have our legs for (Monday) night.”

Lewiston finished the regular season with a pair of games in Sydney, drove home, and returned last weekend for Games 1 and 2, a pair of lopsided losses.

Some home cooking helped the team recover a bit, but the Maineiacs still trail the series, 3-2.

Counting the final two games of the regular season, Lewiston has lost four straight at Centre 200, its last win coming in January.

Still, after a solid game in a 5-2 home win Friday, the Maineiacs are confident they can reverse that trend.

“We have to win two in a row now, that’s the bottom line,” Harding said. “Game 5 is over now, now it’s Game 6, and we have to win two in a row or we’re going home early. But you know, they’re in a good mood, they know they played a good game, they played real hard, in Game 5.”

On the other end sits Cape Breton. After taking a 3-1 series lead, the Screaming Eagles and their uber-rookie goaltender Olivier Roy looked merely mortal. Of course, coming home is going to help.

“We do play much better at home, for sure,” Cape Breton coach Pascal Vincent said. “Every team does. We’re much more conformable there.”

Vincent and his Eagles are trying to avoid an all-too-familiar collapse. Last season, in the league semifinals, Cape Breton led Val d’Or, three-games-to-one, and lost the series.

“We are aware of it, and I am sure our veterans want to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Vincent said. “The difference this time is that we will be at home … for Game 6. Last year, even though we had a better record in the regular season, we were the road team.”

The Maineiacs traveled a bit differently, splitting up the trip over two days. Lewiston stopped Saturday in Moncton and continued to Antigonish – about two-and-a-half hours short of Sydney – for practice at the home of the Antigonish Bulldogs of the MJAHL.

After a spirited session, the Maineiacs piled back on the bus to finish the trip, ready for another good night’s sleep.

Tactically, there isn’t much in the way of secrets between the two teams. Lewiston and Cape Breton split the season series, 3-3, and are playing each other for the eighth consecutive time Monday night.

“It’s all really now a game of adjustments,” Harding said. “We’ve made some changes on the (power play), so did they. We adjusted the way we were doing faceoffs, they reacted to that and we readjusted. It’s just little things like that, and it comes down to a lot of one-on-one battles.”

Lewiston’s power play continues to be anemic, but its penalty kill has come around after a horrible showing in Game 1. Still, the mantra remains the same : Stay out of the penalty box.

“I’m still not satisfied,” Harding said. “What happened at the end of the game, we got two of our veteran guys out there, and we didn’t make it easy for themselves. I was unhappy with the penalties they took.”

Offensively, Lewiston enjoyed its best output in Game 5 on Friday, getting five goals from five different skaters.

In net, goaltender Jonathan Bernier has been solid at times, spectacular at others as he duels Roy.

“Jonathan Bernier is going to be very good, I can guarantee you that,” Harding said. “It’s going to be a good, tight game.”

Paquette out for Game 6

Danick Paquette will serve a one-game suspension Monday for a match penalty officials assessed him in Friday night’s Game 5 for kicking. In a pileup in the Cape Breton crease, Paquette appeared to nudge goaltender Olivier Roy with his skate while attempting to get out of the crease, drawing the call from referee Richard Forest.

Paquette would be eligible to return to action in Game 7, if the game is necessary.

Around the league

Some former Maineiacs are doing well so far in this year’s playoffs, but none better than Rimouski head coach Clem Jodoin.

The former Lewiston skipper drew a tough draw as the No. 7 seed in the Telus Division, but guided his Oceanic to a 4-1 series win against No. 2 Baie-Comeau with a 5-2 win Saturday night.

Rimouski advances to face No. 1 Rouyn-Noranda, for which Pierre-Luc Champagne and Sebastien Piche play.

Elsewhere, Halifax has Victoriaville on the ropes with a 3-2 series lead, with Game 6 scheduled for Monday. Saint John awaits an opponent in the Eastern Division after sweeping PEI in Round 1. Also on Monday, Acadie-Bathurst will try to close out St. John’s at home, while Quebec will try to do the same against Chicoutimi. Gatineau has already finished its series with Shawinigan, and will host the winner of the Quebec/Chicoutimi series starting Friday.